Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal posted this article about the dynamics of 
white protagonists fighting African zombies in Capcom’s new game Resident Evil 5. As I remarked in an earlier post, I am skeptical that the game contains intentionally racist elements.
For most horror fans, it is a priori that reanimated corpses cease to have meaningful attachments to race. The furor over Resident Evil 5 strikes me as just the latest confusion perpetrated by those who fail to understand zombies.
If anything is post-race, it is the zombie, and from few fraternities is racism so utterly absent as that of the zombie fan.
(That said, I haven’t actually played the game myself. Maybe I should.)
ScottKenemore.com 
This is such a stupid accusation that it doesn’t bear any attention. The game takes place in Africa, one of the heroines is an African, so how can this be racist?
Quite aside from the content of the game, the images advertising the game show show a map of Africa with “Resident Evil” title superimposed. That is clearly an implicit suggestion that Africa is a continent of “Resident Evil”. This concept plays directly on the historical cliches of Africa as an intrinsically evil and “dark” place. Did any of the other “Resident Evil” games use the geographical map in publicity? Nope.
And please don’t argue that it was coincidental that the Capcon marketing team made the choice to use the continent of Africa as a symbol for “Resident Evil”! Marketing & advertising executives discuss such symbolism in depth, because it is integral to successful ad campaigns.
Thanks for the comment, Segun. Even though I respectfully disagree with you, I think you make an excellent and accurate point about the very loaded history of Western portrayals of Africa as a “dark continent.”
I certainly don’t think it’s intentional – misjudged? Maybe.
See my review for my full thoughts, including the parts of the game I thought may be on dodgy ground.. http://greghorrorshow.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/resident-evil-5-review-ps3/